Death on the road: can Mumbai molted its reputation as the’ vehicle gate-crash capital ‘?

One person is killed on Mumbais roads every 15 hours, the worst record in India. In an am trying to get a traction on the chaos, the police are departing digital recording penalties electronically and setting CCTV. But will it stop people taking probabilities?

For 30 minutes after she was hit, Archana Pandya lay hemorrhaging on a road in the busy Mumbai suburb of Goregaon. The 22 -year-old, which has recently started a new job, was on her way dwelling from design when she was the victim of a hit-and-run. She died of her harms. There been a great deal of people there, and it happened right opposite a police station, but no one came forward to help, says her brother Siddharth Pandya. Its not the roads; in India, its the people the hell is unsafe.

Pandya was one of 586 parties killed in traffic accident in Mumbai in 2015, the equivalent of one demise every 15 hours. Another 2,034 were seriously injured. The long response times of ambulances and emergency vehicles, coupled with the unwillingness of observers to help road victims for fear of being detained by police and hospitals, contribute to slow, unpleasant extinctions for hundreds of beings every year. As a make, Mumbai a city with approximately the same number of cars as London, but more than four times the number of road fatalities has become known as Indias crash capital. In 2015 there were 23,468 entered transaction crashes: the highest in the country.

The citys metropolitan geography has helped engender a culture of reckless driving. Vehicles zigzag through dense traffic jams, cutting roads, overtaking from the left or zipping past red lights. Motorists know that fines and penalties are small and the chances of being caught are low-cost. Numerous scoff at the concepts of wearing a seatbelt, while others casually take telephone calls and rebuttal text meanings as they steer through the labyrinth of cars.

These lax attitudes and dangerous driving practices are spawned right from the driving experiment, which exists principally as a formality and is easily smoothed with a small bribe. Aditi Deopujari, a Mumbai resident who got her driving licence in 2000, excuses: I was part of a driving academy that had a setup with the Motor Vehicles Department[ which issues licences ]. I proved up and had some practice rounds, but never had to sit the quiz or had any written test regarding the rules. I just got handed the licence. Another occupant, who asked to remain anonymous, says: I literally had to drive five metres forwards, and then five metres reversal. That was it, I passed.

In an attempt to get a grip on the chaos, Milind Bharambe, the is chairman of the traffic police, is presiding over a new traffic control venture. The metropolitan has given all traffic cops electronic inventions to topic fines, and has installed 4,000 CCTV cameras at conjugations and signals. After five breaches, we are going to start taking away licences, says Bharambe, whose are projected to digitise the traffic control arrangement takes clues from Prime Minister Narendra Modis digital India programme.

Watch, says police officer Prashant Prabhu, motioning towards a traffic light at a busy conjugation on the Mumbai marina. Across the road, the light-headed is about to go from dark-green to red. But just as he prophesies, cars intensify through, hoping to cross the signal as the yellowed flashings. Some keep driving even after the dawn disappears cherry-red.

Signal jumping is the biggest offence at this junction, he says. Everyone concludes, the light-colored has just turned crimson, let me to continue efforts to get through. None wants to wait.

Prabhu startles out and pennant down a motorbike that has just sped through the red light. He asks for the equestrians licence, then plucks out a calculator-like design, and fumbles trying to enter his password into the brand-new machine. Eventually he pierces in the licence count and asks for a debit card to pay the 200 rupee( 2.40) penalty.

Sometimes beings refuse to give their driving licence. OK , no problem, we just employed their licence layer digit into the machine, and it will automatically send a fine to their telephone, he says. This lane we have a record of all the traffic offences each operator has committed.

As well as digitising transaction offences, his contrive includes the more analogue solution of new hydraulic towing vans, which can move 4x4s up to now, SUVs that had been severely parked or to participate in collisions had to be left on the road until their motorist moved them. He has also invested in digital signboards to inform about roadworks or coincidences. This is the first time that something like this is being done in the country.

One floor below Bharambes office, Kishore Shinde, the traffic polices first head of multimedia, is checking on pairs of uniformed police officers these are the officers tasked with using the new CCTV cameras to issue tickets and fines remotely. Shinde too oversees a new complaints mechanism, which receives more than 300 words from disappointed operators every day.

The biggest editions are traffic jams , no parking, accidents, and oil spills on the road, he says. Were making all the fines cashless, so operators can compensate via debit card or mobile phone. We know there is corruption and bribery even in our own department, like there is from top to bottom everywhere in India. But formerly you compensate by charge card, that means we have a record of the transaction. No police officer can just take a cut for themselves.